Memorial Day back in the day

As memorial day weekend unfolds this year, it reminds me of a pretty wild and fun memorial weekend before I graduated from high school.

My prom was held on memorial weekend. The prom itself was silly for me, back then and even today. Me and my HS BFF went with a couple of guys from our clique. My guy was actually a childhood friend and hers was the class rebel, the guy with the leather jacked and mustache. She was secretly in love with him. We all were back then. He was always in trouble back then – and as a result our prom night had to end by midnight, they told us, in order for him to make curfew or some bullshit.

I think I knew what bullshit smelled like and it has the distinctive odor of polo mixed with teen spirit. Light a match, it would explode, not dispel. Like a bad fart.

At the prom, we hooked up with other chick rebels of our time. Like a bouquet of pastel flowers with lots of makeup with big hair and attitude, we took off and drank vodka out of a flask and wondered why the hell we went to prom in the first place. We were not joiners. We ditched class ditch day; there was no football in our Friday nights. We drank, smoke, and generally caused commotion wherever we went. It was great. It was alive. It was life as a teen in the 80s.

So why were we home by midnight? Oh yeah, the curfew thing. Right. Which kinda was okay after all. I had the house to myself, a benefit for the kid of the travel agent on a “fam-trip”. My HS BFF and I just looked at each other, smiled, and decided to grab the weekend by its proverbially big shoulder-padded, blue eye-shadowed over-loaded girl-craziness. Feeling empowered by Cyndi Lauper singing how we felt, well, “girls just want to have fun” was our weekend anthem.

By 7am, we called Suz and T and arranged a daisy chain. Everyone called everyone and before we knew it, we had close to a hundred people at my house for an impromptu summer pool party. Suz, T and I giggled. Grabbed our Ohio State drinking cups and toasted the college that would take Suz away from us in the fall.

We grilled everything mom left for me and it was delicious. Some cool older guys brought a couple cases of beer, it all tasted terrific together. I still have the pictures, both in print and in my head. Suz and I still have those memories of those older, fabulous, and glorious boys who caught our attention for a spell, whose name we can’t remember, but whose biceps will burn in our brains forever.

When Suz, T and I go down that path of “do you remember this”, I am usually the one who struggles the most and must rely on them to paint the colors of the edges that are faded for me. And while there are posts in our future crystallizing some of my more fuzzy memories of the crazy roller skating, after parties, dancing, Vallejo and Piedmont crew days we all share, I take solace in at least the fact that I remember this one.

For me, my strolls down memory lane are usually powered by my gal pals vivid spotlight dances. I am more thankful now than ever for them. And by them, I mean Suz and T. And I guess I also mean the memories of our girl-powered, girl-fueled crazy times. All girls should have these.

Now that I’m older I know it’s the not the events you plan for that turn out the best, it’s the ones that just sort of come together at the last minute that feel right and just work - that make everyone want to relive, recall and if you’re really lucky, repeat them.

So as 2010’s memorial weekend is fast upon us, I urge everyone to make the memories last as long as we can and perhaps choose to remember them.